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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23216221">Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister'>GretchenSinister</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rise of the Guardians (2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:35:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23216221</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Original Prompt: "This gonna be long…. Sorry!</p><p>The Sandman is a silent, gentle and kind entity. Guarding dreams and helping them grow and find their way into each child’s sleep; enveloping them into a whole ‘nother world in the far corners of their mind.</p><p>When he himself slumbers however, there is no one to traffic his own dreams, and many times his mind wanders off too far and he ends up in the outer-ring of the universe, in the monstrous company of the Horrorterrors.</p><p>They whisper curses, wars and death into his mind, corrupting him from the inside, blanketing his pure and golden little heart with a veil of grimoire terror and otherworldly murderous desires.</p><p>Give me a gruesome tale about a very violent encounter and how the Sandman tries to rebalance himself once he’s back to reality.</p><p>+100 Bonus points if he tries to fight the Horrorterrors.<br/>+1000 Bonus points if someone notices his twitchy and rather uncharacteristic behavior once he wakes up and demands answers.<br/>+5000 Bonus points if it’s Pitch that confronts him...[cut for length]"</p><p>No gore, and the Things are very vague. But it’s got unrepentant Pitch who is still totally into Sandy, the dork.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Blacksand Short Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/4/2014.</p><p>Here's the rest of the prompt: "+9000 Bonus points if Pitch develops a crush/admiration for the Sandman, learning of his ventures to the outer-ring, demanding tales of his meetings.</p><p>+1.000.000 if the line “We have such sights to show you..!” Is used, by the Sandman. Make it extra creepy too, yes?"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pitch frowned disapprovingly at the Moon. Sandy had been sleeping for three weeks straight now, and he hadn’t thought to tell the Guardians that<em>might</em> be somewhat unusual. <br/><br/>The frown remained on his face as he shaped a door from nightmaresand. Once again, he was going to have to take action to compensate for MiM’s lack of communication skills, which had never, not once, been fun for him. But, as usual, his center easily persuaded him that the outcome of his non-interference would be worse than what would happen to him personally.<br/><br/>The doorknob on the nightmaresand door refused to turn, and Pitch cursed under his breath as he poked a keyhole into the sand underneath it. He conjured a key to fit, looking sternly at the door the entire time. There was no reason for this to be difficult, even if Sandy had removed his standing invitation.<br/><br/>Reasonable or not, it took Pitch nearly an hour of pushing with all his physical and mental strength to open the door wide enough for his attenuated form to slip into Dreamland, and several more for him to find Sandy’s room. The palace presented him not the playful, brilliant, carnivalesque maze it usually did, which would have taken him even longer to get through, but with less worry, since it would signal that Sandy was quite all right, wherever he was, but instead a nested series of golden rooms, plain but for the way their geometries would have disturbed even a dreaming human mind.<br/><br/>When he reached Sandy, he found him sleeping in a room half-filled with sand that was continuously blowing down the chimney. He sprawled in the dune, his face twisted into a grimace, while his arms and legs twitched sporadically. His golden lips parted, and with no further movement, the phrase, “We have such sights to show you” drifted from between them.<br/><br/>Pitch frowned his deepest frown yet. Sandy never talked, awake or asleep—well, he had said “yes” and “Pitch” a few times, but Pitch was pretty sure that wasn’t relevant to <em>this</em> situation—and, anyway, that wasn’t his voice.<br/><br/>So he would need some waking then. Pitch muttered angrily under his breath. A nightmaresand alarm clock wasn’t going to cut it. He needed a symbolic action and there was only one coming to mind. Sandy whined in his sleep and Pitch bent closer. It was clear Sandy had to be woken up now, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t done this before anyway…<br/><br/>He leaned down and kissed Sandy until he was definitely, positively sure he was waking up, then backed away quickly to one corner of the room. Sandy would know what he had done, of course, but this way he would have more time to dodge any attacks.<br/><br/>To his surprise, Sandy’s gasp upon waking led to no violence, but rather him curling up into a ball and drawing a dreamsand blanket around himself. He licked his lips, glanced around for Pitch, and—wonder of wonders—smiled a little when he spotted him. <em>You’re here,</em> he signed, and followed those symbols with a question mark. Why?<br/><br/>“No one else knows how long you’re supposed to sleep. If they even knew you were sleeping in the first place. I guess North would. But I knew you weren’t supposed to be out for that long. You were doing something dangerous, weren’t you?”<br/><br/><em>And you came to save me? That’s quite generous, considering how you’ve recently been the most dangerous thing in my life. Are you sure what you did was the only option you could have taken?</em><br/><br/>Pitch shrugged. “I’m sure there were other options. But I was angry at you and they needed to be frightened and I’m a no-good, terrible, very bad man. Or close enough. You know that.”<br/><br/><em>Well…thank you for waking me. But I wasn’t done with what I was doing. And you’re not off the hook either.</em><br/><br/>“What? Why? What were you doing?”<br/><br/><em>My death and your defeat stirred up some Things around the edges. They need to be convinced to stay put.</em> Sandy signed.<br/><br/>Pitch walked over and sat beside him in the sand. “But usually you put those Things to rest so easily.”<br/><br/>Sandy shivered. <em>They’ve formed alliances. They speak in the collective now.</em><br/><br/>“One of them spoke through you, before you woke up!” Pitch exclaimed.<br/><br/>Sandy sighed silently and ran his hands over his face. <em>That’s bad. This is going to be harder than I thought. But if you just stay here for the duration…</em><br/><br/>“What, Sandy?” This close, and not thinking about kissing him (well, not <em>too</em> much), Pitch noticed the circles under his eyes, the faint lines around his mouth.<br/><br/><em>I’ve been trying for containment rather than annihilation.</em> Sandy worried his lower lip. <em>I…wasn’t sure what happened to you after Easter. Some of the Things reminded me of you. I was trying to be careful.</em><br/><br/>Pitch looked down. “I…I don’t know what to say.”<br/><br/><em>Just stay here. If they’re already in my mind I need to get out of Dreamland soon. I think if I don’t have to hold back…but there are so many…</em><br/><br/>“What if I was your ally?”<br/><br/>Sandy looked over at him, raising his eyebrows. <em>Do you really want to start this again, Pitch?</em><br/><br/>“I…nothing ever <em>stopped</em>, Sandy. I’m just never going to be nice.”<br/><br/>Sandy nodded, but signed nothing. <br/><br/>“You know I miss you.”<br/><br/><em>You’re an insatiable wreck of a prima-donna who has self-sabotage down to an art.</em><br/><br/>“You’re a smug little creampuff who makes up for having your head in the clouds with brute force and a cheeky grin.”<br/><br/>Sandy lay down in the sand, propping his head up on his hand. <em>Allies, then?</em><br/><br/>Pitch followed, settling mere inches away from Sandy. “I prefer another term.”<br/><br/><em>Strange bedfellows. You’re predictable.</em><br/><br/>Pitch chuckled and kissed his nose. “You said it, not me.”<br/><br/><em>We still have monsters to fight. And you know the Guardians hate when we’re together.</em><br/><br/>“I love pissing off the Guardians. And so do you. Now point me at the monsters, Sandy. I have to say, I’m quite looking forward to seeing you annihilate something.”<br/><br/>Sandy rolled his eyes. <em>Don’t say ‘annihilate’ that way, </em>he signed, as he swept dreamsand over them both.<br/><br/>Pitch was still laughing as they sliced the first Thing in two.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tags from Tumblr:</p><p>#Pitch is actually really good at killing monsters#like muscle memory or something#he's never really questioned it#he's good at not questioning things like that</p></blockquote></div></div>
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